


Across the Hellespont

by Sunafiction_88



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst and Humor, BAMF Alec Lightwood, BAMF Magnus Bane, Emotional, Love, M/M, Magic, Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood-centric, Meant To Be, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Magnus Bane, Romance, Romantic Gestures, Time Travel, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 11:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11206848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunafiction_88/pseuds/Sunafiction_88
Summary: "There is Eternity, whence flowed Time, as from a river, into the world." - Plutarch





	Across the Hellespont

_I was pumped from the loins of an immortal Cosmos,_  
_and planted in the womb of an ephemeral Earth._  
_Eternally iconoclastic._  
**Poem fragment, circa 1700s.**

 

The moments marched on as Magnus counted the bricks of his cell noisily in _castellano_ for the third time that day. He’d developed a proficiency in the language only recently, first hearing it upon his travelling through the Philippines and practicing while he took a Manila Galleon to the capital of ‘New Spain.’ The vowels had sounded interesting and he’d been looking for another language to replace the batavian language that had begun to feel heavy on his tongue.

He also knew, but refused to speak, Dutch.

Magnus noticed that calling _castellano_ ‘castellano’ seemed to annoy his captors. They also didn’t like him calling ‘New Spain’ Mexico-Tenochtitlan. The ugly bruising around his ribs informing him pointedly that it was a rather outdated and politically charged term. Magnus figured, however, that if they insisted on keeping him locked up in a stone box and chained to a wall, they could survive his linguistic preferences.

Muffled scraping sounds overhead interrupted his recital, and his imagination supplied images of long imperial Spanish blades being sharpened upon a whetstone. He wondered, somewhat fatalistically, at his potentially short-lived forever. Perhaps he should’ve made other choices. Should not have been so hasty to leave the Philippines, had learned Tagalog from the handsome flower-carrying girl with hooded eyes. Not taken the Manila Galleon. Certainly not detoured into the small country town outside Mexico-Tenochtitlan. 

His mind was partway through the fantasy of a quiet Manila life with his Filipino lady when the image of another handsome woman flashed into his mind. Her fierce profile had stood unbent and proud; she’d bravely awaited her reckoning as the ropes indented the flesh around her arms and chest like a trussed pig, the sharp sticks around her ankles scraping her brown feet and calves. Magnus had been drawn by the ruckus of the crowd but his stomach had turned upon realising the cause of the commotion.

He’d arrived as the priest was partway through reciting the woman’s list of magical sins. The Witch Hunter held a lit torch on the opposite side of the pyre, awaiting an end to the priest’s sermonic damnation. Magnus suspected that the zealous spark in both their eyes was less because of a burning need to fulfil their divinely ordained duty and more an excitement at the drama and attention they’d elicited. Even the weather was dramatic. Dry lightning forked the sky, intermittently interrupted by the rumbling drumming of thunder.

Meanwhile, the noisy and wrathful crowd almost drowned out the priest as they sung their own hateful song and threw vegetables that thwacked dully upon the woman’s body. The woman herself, her cracked lips thin and jaw tight, barely flinched as she kept her dry-eyed gaze above the crowd.

No. He was glad for the choices leading him to that town and the saving that led him to his capture. He was simply sorry to have placed himself in such a foolish situation to begin with when he’d only begun to truly enjoy living here. Having one's magical self knocked out by a heavy object smashing into your temple was embarrassingly bad luck. Waking up with one's magic rendered useless because your wrists are chained to a wall was abominably bad luck.

The people of ‘New Spain’ were clearly a superstitious lot. They were definitely hyper-vigilant and deeply intolerant of any supernatural activity. Magnus had met their type before and he knew the only reason he was alive was because he didn’t fit their puritanical or cultural understanding of a magic user. Simply put, they didn’t know what to make of him.

Magnus had observed over the years that this led to one of two outcomes; instant death or a slow deliberation on the fate of the captured.

Magnus was grateful they hadn’t killed him outright, but he was surprisingly unafraid of the possibility. He was young enough a Warlock that death was an abstraction and he believed entirely that he could get out of this mess. At the moment, however, he couldn’t do much else to save himself without even a little hand mobility. He’d spent the first day trying to twist and pull his wrists out of the restraints without success. Magnus supposed he’d have to wait for the moments of transition to brake free. The in-betweens when his captors unhook his wrists to transport him elsewhere. Magnus hoped they didn’t decide to simply run him through. Such an unfortunate event would make his escape more difficult.

Meanwhile, he was bored. He’d been staring at a stone wall with only the same occasional terrified and furious soldier to torment for a few days now. He wanted them to hurry with their verdicts so he could leave this place and find more rewarding company.

He should also find the woman he’d rescued.

Sudden activity interrupted Magnus’s thoughts and he raised his gaze to the ceiling where a cacophony of voices were communicating with escalating volume. Boots trudged overhead in increasing panic and disorder as a large BOOM shook the foundations of the manor house he was being kept in.

Luckily for Magnus, the aftershocks had begun loosening the peg holding his wrists above his head. Not one to miss an opportunity, Magnus began furiously twisting his well-muscled arms with each tremor until the loosened wall peg fell away with a heavy clunk. Unfortunately the peg had been supporting the burden of the lock between his wrists and his arms were violently wrenched down over his head, the unexpected weighted motion sending him to the ground.

Grunting with the sharp ache, Magnus used his legs to manoeuvre back to his feet. The ceiling and ground continued to vibrate slightly with the aftershock of whatever had caused the explosion above. His wrists were still shackled together by the heavy chain and his lack of nourishment or recent exercise made his efforts to rise a stumbling one. The dust whipped up by the blast was also infuriatingly itchy, clinging to his skin and unsalvageable garments. It was not an ideal situation but much better than the one he’d been in moments before.

Magnus surveyed the bars before him. Rolling the stiffness from his shoulders and picking a stance, Magnus moved his shackled hands as best he could. Calling upon his magic, it enveloped him in a soft and welcoming glow. He felt stronger suddenly. Warm and stabilised.

He remembered a time when ‘warm and stabilised’ would have been the farthest description of his demonic powers. When not too long ago calling upon his magic had left his insides slick with oily self-loathing. ‘Never again,’ he’d promised himself over and over. ‘Never again’ eventually became an everyday hymn, like a confession absolving him of wrongdoing only for him to transgress immediately after. Once Magnus realised the entirety of his self deception he vowed ‘never again’ only once more. Never again would he let anything or anyone— not even himself— make him feel like an unworthy being for an intrinsic part of who he was. He’d embraced his powers after that, learned how to use them to their best advantage.

Magnus’s body hummed with magic, his veins crooned with it, a symphony ascending through his body to pool in his hands. With his conduction, the indigo sonata wound itself around the bars and melted them away effortlessly, forming a large iron puddle on the floor.    

He was about to attempt a similar action on his shackles when he heard the door to the prison-dudgeon slamming open— letting in more of the noisy chaos above— and slam closed again. Magnus froze as a strong, swift tread descended the stone steps and echoed dully in the small and otherwise empty space.

At least there wouldn’t be any human witnesses this time, Magnus reflected, as he readied himself to fight as best he could with bound hands. Really, Magnus thought grimly, limited hand movement didn’t much matter— no human had hope against him.

When the human curved into his line of sight they both froze in a suspended moment upon seeing the other. Magnus’s first thought was, ‘beautiful eyes.’ His second thought was, ‘not human.’ Magnus’s third thought was some variation of, ‘fuck!’

Magnus reacted. Recollecting his magic in his hands, he lashed it like a coiling snake at the mostly veiled, supernatural being. Agile and swift-footed, the man swiveled his long, brawny body out of the way and slammed himself up against one of the walls of Magnus’s cell.

Magnus didn’t give the being a moment’s reprieve, advancing on him with a stomach roiling purpose, swirls of cerulean sparking around Magnus’s hands and arms. He mustn’t hesitate. There had to be a reason for his being there. The moment chosen, the distraction, the pandemonium, it could not have been a coincidence.

Magnus had met few other mythical beings. Although each supernatural person had been a different and varying degree of human, there was one consensus among them; the runed folk were to be avoided at all cost. Normally this would increase Magnus’s curiosity, and Magnus was certainly curious, but he also remembered the horror stories that were relayed— the massacres and the revulsion. Whether his oddly dressed runed man was to take Magnus or murder him, Magnus would not let that happen.

“Magnus, wait! I’ve come to help you.”

He spoke breathlessly from beneath his veil in a language Magnus did not recognize, but he recognized his own name.

“How do you know me?” Magnus replied cautiously in _castellano_ , eye to eye with the assailant, pausing in his assault. Magnus’s hands still sparking blue as he held them inches from the man’s frozen form. 'What are you?' Magnus thought to himself, but considered it too rude to ask.

The man’s beautiful eyes flickered for a moment and latched back onto Magnus. His eyes were the only facial features Magnus could see clearly because of the silken black veil wrapped around his shoulders, lower face, and head. Magnus thought how those eyes could haunt the dreams of even the most unromantic of souls.

Magnus accepted that he was a particularly romantic soul.

“I’ve come to help you, Magnus,” the man said slowly, bluntly, in _castellano_ , as if considering each word definitively, testing it with his tongue. He was apparently not used to speaking in Spanish. “I need you out of danger.”

Magnus found his defenses wavering, his heart beating a little too quick in his chest. Instead of swooning, however, he raised his eyebrows in amusement.

“How valiant,” Magnus said dryly.

The man furrowed his eyebrows in annoyance and Magnus grinned as he caused the magic swirling around his arms and hands to contract and wrap around his shackles. They melted away and Magnus rolled his wrists and flexed his fluid fingers exaggeratedly as liquid iron dripped to the ground. Magnus was making a point. Magnus wasn’t showing off. He wasn’t.

The man rolled his eyes. “I get it,” he said in his slow Spanish, “would you like to get us out of here then?”

Magnus was having more fun than any dangerous situations traditionally called for, though he’d never yet described himself as traditional. Hesitantly, Magnus turned his back on his assailant and made his way out of the cell and down the corridor. He expected the man to follow him and he did.

Magnus stopped at the end of the corridor where the grounds outside could be seen through a barred opening just above their heads. Magnus was about to flourish his hands when the other man’s hand gently enveloped his wrist. Magnus flinched from the unexpected contact and whisked his head around.

“Let me,” said the man as he hastily let go of Magnus’s wrist, “save your magic because you might need it later.”

Magnus nodded and let the other man take the lead. He exalted in watching the obvious display of strength as the man took the bars in hand and heaved the frame from the opening. He’d made it look easier than it undeniably was.

“After you, Magnus,” the man stepped aside and gestured at the opening he’d made.

Magnus wouldn’t ordinarily turn his back on a newly discovered runed being whose people had a horrible reputation for cruelty, let alone one he’d met under dubious circumstances, but he was also well versed in recognizing treachery.

The veiled man was a mystery, but a clumsy one. Those lovely, clear eyes were too honest and that low voice was too straightforward to hide much of anything. There was a quality to the man that had you trusting him despite yourself. Or maybe it was just Magnus? Magnus admired sincerity no matter how rude or ill-adjusted it made the other person. Magnus did not possess many honest characteristics and he’d found honesty in others was good for him in general. There was also not much of a need for Magnus to perform with such people. Performance only confused, amused, or irritated honest people.

Irritating honest people could be rather fun, Magnus admitted wryly, as a green and scowling face flashed briefly into his mind, and he slipped a little in his attempt to pull himself out of the opening.

“I may need help after all,” Magnus winking back at the man who startled and then nodded a bit too resolute. He was a soldier awaiting orders, all stiff back and purposeful motion. Magnus thought how the ‘mysterious rogue’ look was another way he was a clumsy mystery. It was entirely ill-fitting, and Magnus had a sudden desire to loosen those tense muscles and whip away his veil.

Instead Magnus grabbed the ledge and pulled his body up again as the other man boosted him by the sole of his feet. Magnus noticed a little smugly that the man seemed reluctant to let go of his feet as he struggled his way out into the night.

Magnus was glad the area they were wriggling into was a deserted side of the manor house, distracted as the humans were by the inferno blazing to his far right. It seemed that perhaps the man had set the church next to the manor alight. The yelling and activity of the soldiers and crackling and crunching of a flaming building was distant enough that this side of the manor was dark and hushed.

“What exactly did you do?” Magnus asked as he twisted around on his knees to help the man up, grabbing his arms and bunches of his robes to pull him out of the opening. He scrambled up to stand watchfully by Magnus’s kneeling body, righting his veil carefully.

“What do you mean?” He said as he looked around towards the yelling and roaring flames that were audible from the other side of the property. “I didn’t do this.”

“You didn’t?” Magnus was genuinely surprised. The pandemonium couldn’t be a coincidence could it? Perhaps the people had finally had enough of Spanish Imperialism?

“No, I just used it. I was trying to find you and last night I found you’d been taken by soldiers for disrupting a trial.” He said this evenly and haltingly, like he regretted his honesty in not taking credit for being a pyromaniac.

Magnus wondered again how he knew of him and why he was trying to find him. How can someone be both transparent _and_ impenetrable? Magnus snorted as he got up, attempting to shake his notions as he dusted himself off.

“It wasn’t a trial, it was a crucifixion.”

“Disrupting a crucifixion,” the man amended, crisp and blunt and not at all mysterious, making his veil look utterly incongruous.

Magnus laughed a true laugh then, which the other man stared overly long at before shushing him quickly when foliage shook nearby. The ridiculous creature with the beautiful eyes swiftly moved his body to be the wall between Magnus and whatever was coming through the darkness.

Magnus didn’t know what to think. Nobody had ever tried protecting him before. He melted a little. Magnus was proud, but he wasn’t proud enough to not admit when he was charmed. It took Magnus more than a few seconds to force himself to feel affronted. After all, Magnus didn’t need protection. He was a magical hell beast.

Rapping the other man’s shoulder in punishment, he stepped out from behind him, picking a stance to best display his majesty, rags or no rags, and embraced his magic, letting it envelop him, letting it pool and swirl in his hands. He heard a frustrated grunt to his left, but when he looked around the man’s eyes were twinkling in amusement as they focused on penetrating the dark foliage behind their side of the manor house.

“What do I call you?” Magnus asked casually, flashing the man a flirtatious grin, “I can’t keep thinking of you as ‘Beautiful Eyes,’ it’s sure to become trite.”

Magnus watched the man’s stance visibly falter. Magnus’s blood purred in pleasure.

“My name’s Alexander.” Alexander stumbled slightly over his own name and Magnus wondered if it was real.

“Alexander is a lovely name,” Magnus replied gently.

“Thank you,” Alexander murmured into his veil, a flush coloured the skin around his eyes as he looked quickly away from Magnus. It likely was his real name then.

Just as Magnus was beginning to think his night would lean towards the unexpectedly quixotic, a woman strode noisily out of the dark forestry and into view.

Alexander snapped from intensely sweet to intensely battle ready instantaneously and Magnus felt uneasy for the first time since meeting him. Placing his hands on Alexander’s arm, Magnus let go of his magic and gestured for Alexander to also ease his bearing.

Magnus had recognized the woman immediately as the woman he’d saved. She’d been browner and markedly less blue two days ago, but she still wore her strength in every line of her determined face. Magnus was now sure it had been the woman who’d used her magic to demolish the church.

The blue woman looked first at Magnus and then at Alexander, stopped, nodded once to herself, turned, and made her brisk way back to the forestry behind her. Pausing only so long as it took her to maneuver her heavy skirts through the thick grass, and to glare at any branches that’d dared to snare her heavy skirts.

Grinning in delight at discovering yet another prickly and honest Warlock, Magnus grabbed Alexander’s hand instinctively, surprised when he received little to no resistance and quickly dragged them both towards where the woman was disappearing through the trees and vines. It’d been to demonstrate to Alexander that it was okay, that they should catch the woman, but the feel of Alexander’s palm against his felt right. Like it belonged there, in his. Magnus dropped Alexander’s hand reluctantly as they reached the trees. Magnus thought optimistically that the contact had affected Alexander too— he seemed less stiff and focused, running one hand over the other absently as he flicked his eyes from the woman ahead to the man beside him.

The woman issued an impressive string of Spanish curses when she looked back, and Magnus could see her indecisiveness. She decided to stay. She waited for them to catch up to where she was standing next to a big tree overburdened by long prickly leaves and equally prickly big white flowers.

“It’s been an anomalous night,” said Magnus with cheer in his voice as they reached the woman. she raised her eyebrows tolerantly. “Two lovely saviours and I’m not even wearing my best clothes.” Magnus looked down at himself and grimaced. “If I’d been wearing my Rhinegrave breeches, embroidered buttoned coat, and lace jabot… well, I wouldn’t need saving because a combination so gorgeous on someone as gorgeous as me would’ve charmed even the hardest soldier.”

The woman snorted and Alexander frowned.

Magnus quickly moved on. “I’m Magnus Bane, and this tall inscrutability is Alexander.”

“Catarina,” said Catarina.

A small amused smile was directed towards Magnus and he felt unaccountably victorious. Catarina gave Alexander an efficiently assessing look, he did the same to her. She turned back to Magnus.

“You saved me and I saved you but I don’t know your world. I don't want to. I was fine doctoring my village after my Mother..." She trailed off, "and I'll do fine again when I discover a way to make them forget about the magic.”

Sadness suddenly swept through Magnus, “How old are you?” He asked, roughly knowing the answer already. Magnus felt Alexander shift uncomfortably next to him.

“Thirty Summers." Catarina replied, "why?”

Magnus was at a loss of what to do, he’d never come across a young Warlock before, but he’d certainly been one not too long ago, and if she was anywhere near as stubborn as he’d been, Magnus knew he probably could not convince her that leaving was the best option.

“I’ve a friend who's well-versed in memory charms,” Magnus said instead, watching as both his new potential friends stiffened, one in controlled enthusiasm and the other in, well, Magnus could only guess what was happening behind those quiet and considering eyes.

“Why?”

“You burned down a church for me, dear Catarina. First Warlock lesson, if you know your worth then you’ll never be in anyone’s debt.” Magnus could tell that Catarina didn’t necessarily agree with the sentiment but she accepted the reasoning.

She came to a visible conclusion, “I’ll show you how to leave the rainforest without catching attention but you’ll have to take me to your friend.”  

 

* * *

 

Alexander had been laconic since they’d met Catarina, who had left Magnus and Alexander behind to walk in semi-comfortable, semi-tense silence as she scouted ahead to find the right path out of the forestry. Magnus was trying to decide if flirtation or sincerity would revive their earlier energy, when Magnus’s thoughts were disrupted.

“I have to leave.” Alexander said suddenly.

Startled, Magnus reacted with his truth, “Don’t!”

“I have to.” Alexander had stopped walking, forcing Magnus to stop too.

Magnus took a moment to lock his confused disappointment away. He’d never beg anyone to stay with him. Not ever. If Alexander wanted to leave once they were out of the rainforest, there was nothing Magnus could do. Magnus faced Alexander, relaxing his stance, attempting cavalier.

“If you must, you must.” Magnus said carelessly, crisply, instead of saying, _don’t go, I want to know who you are, who we could be together._

“I can’t...” Alexander said softly, his intense eyes becoming distressed as they travelled over Magnus’s face and latched onto Magnus’s own eyes, “we’ll see each other again, Magnus. I promise.” His deep, soft voice wavered and his eyes begged Magnus. _Please believe me_ , they said.

Magnus shook his head slightly in disbelief and turned to catch up with Catarina, his heart in his throat. He could at least stop himself from becoming attached.

“We can mark the promise if you want?” Alexander sounded desperate as he grabbed Magnus’s arm, he gentled his touch as he turned Magnus back around, letting go only to thrust his hand out awkwardly and resolutely, his extended hand slicing the air between them, “Please, Magnus.”

Hopeless and bewildered, Magnus took Alexander’s hand and turned it over gently so that Magnus had his palm held loosely in his own. Alexander’s fingers lost their stiffness as they curled of their own accord to hold Magnus’s hand.

“Farewell for now, buah hatiku.” Magnus bent down and placed a lingering kiss on the soft skin above Alexander’s knuckle like he’d seen the Spanish gentlemen do in the Philippines. Alexander was warm under his lips. Unable to help himself, Magnus raised his head enough to tenderly smooth a thumb over the kiss, pressing it into Alexander’s skin to join the runes tattooing his body.

Alexander hissed out an inhalation and Magnus dropped his hand reluctantly and straightened, his blood rushing in his ears. Had he’d ruined everything? Destroyed their delicate relationship? Alexander appeared to have lost his breath and his beautiful eyes glittered as they bore down into Magnus’s. Was it anger or something else? Had he read it all wrong? Magnus kept his eyes level with Alexander’s, searching for his thoughts.

Magnus opened his mouth to say anything to break the tension, when it was broken by Catarina loudly cursing the rude obstruction from an overly energetic ape. Catarina was some distance ahead, but still easily seen. Magnus took pleasure in Catarina’s equally energetic attempts to scare the ape off. Laughing, he turned back to share his enjoyment with Alexander.

Alexander was gone.

It was like he’d puffed out of existence. As far as could be seen, there was no sign of anyone apart from Magnus and Catarina. Alexander had not made a sound leaving and there was no evidence that a tall and powerfully muscled body had trudged back through the rainforest.

By the time a deeply confused and heavy-hearted Magnus caught up with Catarina, Catarina would remember nothing of the Nephilim she’d met, and the only part of Alexander Magnus would remember were a pair of big, beautiful eyes. An icon he’d see in countless others over the centuries, a mysterious motif haunting his dreams.  

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the lovely @lightmywood_ who was my beta and encouragement.  
> I do not own these characters.  
> I'm a white, bisexual, and Australian woman.  
> Any mistakes you detect in relation to my blinkered experience, let me know.  
> Thank you for taking the time to read my writing.


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